Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Rotating light provides indirect look into the nucleus: The new technique is based on Optical Faraday Rotation (OFR), a phenomenon in which the plane of linearly polarized light rotates upon crossing a material immersed in a magnetic field. When nuclei are sufficiently polarized, the extra magnetic field they produce is 'felt' by the electrons in the sample thus leading to Faraday rotation of their own. Because the interaction between electrons and nuclei depends on the local molecular structure, OFR-detected NMR spectroscopy provides complementary information to conventional detection.